


Smoke and Fire and Everything's Burning

by taramacIay



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Past Character Death, characters and tags added as I go along, three shot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-21
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 06:01:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1215319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taramacIay/pseuds/taramacIay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six fucking days - that's how long it had been since he last heard from Cas. He never spent that long without replying, so Dean did what any normal person would do, and went over to his house. But why wasn't anyone home?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoke and Fire and Everything's Burning

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this instead of going to sleep, hip hip for me.  
> It was originally intended to be a short one shot, but it got away from me and it's probably going to be a three shot. 
> 
> Also, I am not a journalist or a news reporter, therefore please excuse my rubbish tries at newspaper articles. I never was good at those. I'm also not good with the whole 'what things exactly can cause death' - that statement will make sense. I swear.

Six fucking days - that's how long it had been since he last heard from Cas.

Of course, they had their own lives and couldn't be talking to each other every waking moment, but none of his texts were replied to, and Cas wasn't picking up when he rang. 

Knowing Cas as well as he did - despite the fact that they had known each other for almost a year and had gone out for less - he knew this wasn't characteristic of him. So he did what anyone else would do, and went over to his house.

Maybe he was just ill. Maybe he lost his phone.

His beloved Impala was loud enough to be heard from inside, so he assumed Cas had enough time to move his ass downstairs to open the door for him in the time it took Dean to park and get there. Still, he knocked. No reply. No one was opening the door; not Cas, nor any of his mysterious siblings. Not that he would recognise said siblings, but that was beside the point.

Usually, Cas had the door open before Dean even got the chance to knock. Usually Cas was already inviting him in by the time he got to the door. Why did he find himself knocking for a third time ten?

As he contemplated breaking in through the backyard - he never once claimed to be above doing such things - he caught sight of an elderly woman next door. She wasn't too old, not past her sixties, and she wasn't familiar. She also wasn't looking at him as if she expected him to set the house on fire, which he took as an invitation to talk to her.

"The family living here," he began, pointing towards the house as if it weren't clear to what he referred, "do you know if they're in?"

The woman looked confused. "The house is unoccupied, dear. No one is living there."

"Since when?" Cas hadn't told him they were moving out. He  _had_ looked sadder recently, but he hadn't mentioned _this_.

"It has been empty for a while," she replied. "Ever since the Novaks died back in '92."

She had to be joking, Dean decided.  _Died?_ But she looked serious, and sad, and befuddled by Dean's shock.

"Are you alright? You don't look it. Here-"

Dean backed away, towards his car. "No, no thanks. I'm fine. I'm fine. I just- I need to-" Without elaborating further, he got into the driver's seat and quickly drove off, trying not to look at the Novak house in his rearview mirror. 

"Five years. Five years. It can't be! I was there with Cas just last week! It wasn't empty at all." It hadn't been. There was furniture, and decorations hung on the walls. The kitchen cupboards were full of food or other items. It was not  _empty_. "And the Novaks... she said they died. But Cas..." He wanted to turn, to go back and break into the house, reassure himself that the woman was wrong.

She wasn't wrong, and he knew that, somehow. He drove to the library instead. 

The library wasn't a very large one, but it had old newspapers dating back a couple of decades. He found the papers for '92 with ease, thanks to the organisational skills of the librarians and the fact that the main paper was monthly. He skimmed each paper, looking for the surname he dreaded to find. 

FEBRUARY 1ST 1992

_Family found dead in fire._

Residents were shocked to hear that, in the morning of January 27th, the Novak family were found dead in their beds. The cause of the fire is, as of yet, unknown, but a gas leak is suspected. Neighbour Missouri Moseley was first to see the fire (...)

Dean shut his eyes. It was impossible. He knew Cas; he was alive and fine mere  _days_ ago. As was his family, as far as he knew. This was a trick.

MARCH 1ST 1992

_Funeral held for deceased family of five_

Last week, the funeral for the Novak family was held, after autopsy reports confirmed suspicions of gas leak. The two eldest children are confirmed to have asphyxiated from inhalation of smoke, whilst the father was said to have died in the fire itself. The youngest child - middle school student Castiel Novak - was said to have died from blood loss, before suffering first degree burns. **  
**

So it was true. He dropped the papers on the table, neglecting to put them back in their place. He ran out of the library, ignoring the librarian's scolding - he didn't really care. Cas was dead. But how did he not know of this? It wasn't _natural causes_ , it was a house fire. In a town as small as theirs, this was big news. 

He left his car parked outside the library, confident that, for the moment, it would be alright there. The library was close to the Novak house, and he needed to go back. 

Missouri Moseley was outside her house again. She was sitting in a chair, on the porch. As he approached, he felt her eyes boring into him, as if she'd known he would return. He passed the Novak house and stopped at hers. 

"There was a house fire." He wasn't asking, but she still nodded in confirmation. "What caused it?" 

At that, she stopped to think. "I believe it was revealed that Chuck, the father, had caused the gas leak whilst drunk. He passed out and didn't wake up until the flames were sky high. None of them stood a chance."

Dean glanced towards the familiar building. Had the room he had spent so much time in really been the place his boyfriend had died in, years before they'd even met? He let out a humorless laugh; what a twisted situation he found himself in.

"Why is the house still standing? Why has no one moved in?"

"The house was badly damaged in the fire, but it was reconstructed, and left alone as a memorial of sorts to the family. Everyone knows that."

Dean didn't reply to that. He didn't know how to. 

His eyes still hadn't strayed from the house, and the two just remained stationary, letting the silence be broken only by the faint noises of the wind. A figure suddenly caught Dean's eye - it was human, and dark haired and wore a tan trenchcoat. He didn't think twice about running towards it, as it pushed through the bushes and into the Novak's backyard.

He followed suit, ignoring how the branches scratched at him, and saw the coat disappearing through the open backdoor. He entered the house . It was empty, and he stared at the ground as he followed the footsteps up the stairs - he didn't want to look around and see how bare it all was, how the walls lacked decoration or the cupboards food, and how what he thought was true, never was.

"Cas? Cas!" he called, hearing the person walk to the end of the hallway. He sped up the last few steps and cautiously walked over to Cas' bedroom door. "Cas? Is that you?" He closed his hand around the door knob, quickly praying it was Cas. The part of him that stubbornly refused to see reason, the part that still believed this was all a trick and that Cas  _was_ alive; that part momentarily took over. With a sudden burst of hope, he pushed the door open, but that hope disappeared instantly.

**Author's Note:**

> Next part'll probably be posted today, earlier or later depending on whether I accidentally fall asleep again or not.


End file.
